DFL out of control with spending

Published August 21, 2014 at 11:23 pm

To the Editor:

As usual one of last week’s letters needs “the rest of the story.” The $5 million for roads and bridges that Ron Kresha voted against was part of a $320 million supplemental budget bill passed by the DFL-controlled legislature at the end of the session. It contained $1 billion in new spending over the next two years without knowing if the money will be there.

This was after the DFL-controlled legislature voted to build themselves an $89 million office building over funding roads and bridges.

I would say that the DFL governor and legislature spend money like “drunken sailors,” but even drunken sailors don’t spend money they don’t have, and I would be insulting a lot of drunken sailors.

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Kresha didn’t just vote against $5 million for rural roads and bridges like
your letter says. He voted against $50 million for rural roads and bridges,
and $20 million for rural broadband access. That money would have to come
from our property taxes without state funding, or we’d have to go without.
Which of those did Kresha want? People around here don’t want either one,
and he should have voted that way instead of following his party leaders.

And that billion in new spending you talked about? That comes from the $2.1
billion in new revenue. $1.8 billion of that comes from increased taxes on
incomes over $600,000/year. Do you and Kresha and the rest of the
Republicans think that should keep coming out of the middle class or
borrowing like you did it? People around here don’t want that either.

Rick Witte

Federal it seems Aleta is quite the master of modern mythology. While certainly economic conditions could turn in the coming years there does currently exist the money to fund what they legislated. While Kresha may have his reasons for voting against the measure it is quite confounding to hear his supporters claim he supports what he voted against.

Aleta wants us to believe that the need for more funds for roads and bridges just appeared in the last few years. Perhaps Aleta could entertain us with the legislation from the Pawlenty years to correct this infrastructure issue we have.